The Google engineer accused of insider trading said he was just gambling
Michele Spagnuolo, a Google engineer accused of insider trading, was arrested in May this year. He was accused of using internal information to bet on the singer d4vd becoming the person with the highest Google search volume in 2025 on Polymarket, aiming to make a profit of $1.2 million. He was charged with commodity fraud, telecommunications fraud, and money laundering. This week, his legal team submitted a request to have his charges dismissed. Spagnuolo did not directly deny profiting from using internal information; instead, he claimed that he was simply gambling, and that gambling is not a financial instrument regulated by the U.S. Commodity Exchange Act. Moreover, the gambling took place outside the United States and was not under U.S. jurisdiction. Spagnuolo has been suspended by Google. Although Polymarket is a U.S.-based company, its prediction market is banned in the U.S., and its platform is operated by a Panamanian company called Adventure One QSS. Spagnuolo was on Polymarket…